Nike class
The Nike-class was, at the onset of the Second Haven-Manticore War, the latest and most advanced class of battlecruiser in the service of the Royal Manticoran Navy. Conception and Development For some naval theorists, the advent of the multi-drive missile and the pod-laying warship meant the obsolescence of the battlecruiser classification, as it was neither capable of delivering the fire volumes the new missile-intensive combat required, nor it was capable of effectively remaining outside the range of enemy missiles, and also it didn't have the endurance and resilience ships of the wall had, due to their lighter construction. (HH11) One solution offered to keep the battlecruiser as a viable type of warship was to develop hollow-core battlecruisers capable of deploying missile pods in the manner of a pod-laying superdreadnought. This concept led to the Royal Manticoran Navy's ''Agamemnon''-class, the Grayson Space Navy's ''Raoul Courvosier''-II-class and the Imperial Andermani Navy's ''Blücher''-class. However, the BC(P), as the variant became known, was not entirely satisfactory, as its firing endurance was limited and its structural resistance was more compromised than it had been the case with pod-laying superdreadnoughts. (HH11) Another alternative was pursued by the Royal Manticoran Navy with what would become known as the Nike-class, with the intention of recasting the battlecruiser as a "generalist" warship capable of withstanding the transformed reality of naval combat. This design was considerably larger and more massive than any prior battlecruiser, massing around 2.5 million tons (thrice the size of an earlier ''Reliant''-class vessel) and with higher acceleration thanks to the improvements in compensator technology. It was also far more resistant than pod-laying battlecruisers, and more suitable for the general raiding and space control missions the battlecruiser was used. It also carried more crew, and a larger complement of Marines than Agamemnons. (SI2) While incapable of carrying missile pods as their Agamemnon contemporaries, and also unable to mount three-staged missiles, the Nikes were armed with off-bore missile launcherswhich allowed them to effectively launch a single salvo of missile from all fifty launchers at once and their magazine spaces gave them ammunition for forty minutes of sustained engagement. (HH11) Authorized by the Janacek Admiralty as a one-off testbed ship, the class' prototype, [[HMS Nike (BC-762)|HMS Nike]], was almost ready for deployment when Manticore resumed its war against the Republic of Haven, and for a time it was the only ship of its class, but mass production of Nike-class battlecruisers was immediately ordered by the Manticoran Admiralty, with the first new-construction ships entering service around 1921 PD. (HH11) Technical Specifications * Crew: 750 * Tonnage: 2,500,000 tons * Acceleration: ** Maximum Military Power: 700g ** Normal Maximum (80% of Military): 540g * Armament: ** Magazine: 6,000 Mark 16 MDMs ** Broadside: *** 12x graser mounts *** 25x missile tubes, capable of off-bore firing **** Mark 16 two-stage missiles *** 30x countermissile tubes *** 30x point-defense laser clusters ** Chase: *** 4x graser mounts * Space to carry eighty "flat pack" missile pods limpeted to her hull. (SI2) Known Ships * [[HMS Nike (BC-762)|HMS Nike (BC-762)]] - Lead ship of the class * [[HMS Achilles|HMS Achilles]] * [[HMS Daedalus|HMS Daedalus]] * [[HMS Horatius|HMS Horatius]] * [[HMS Jason|HMS Jason]] * [[HMS Penelope|HMS Penelope]] * [[HMS Perseus|HMS Perseus]] * [[HMS Romulus|HMS Romulus]] * [[HMS Theseus|HMS Theseus]] External links * David Weber's infodump post about the Nike class References Category:Battlecruisers Category:Manticoran Battlecruisers Category:Royal Manticoran Navy Category:Spacecraft Category:Ship Classes Category:Manticoran Ship Classes